


The Sheik: My Thoughts

by KaibaSlaveGirl34



Category: Original Work, The Sheik (1921), The Sheik - E.M. Hull
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Epistolary, F/M, Inspired by Novel, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Reviews, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 09:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18179054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaibaSlaveGirl34/pseuds/KaibaSlaveGirl34
Summary: An original character’s thoughts on the book The Sheik by E.M. Hull, as well as the movie of the same name starring Rudolph Valentino as the title character..





	The Sheik: My Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Harry2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harry2/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I own the fanfics that I cook up from time to time.

**The Sheik: My Thoughts**

Basically, the book The Sheik by E.M. Hull (aka Edith Maude Hull) is one of my favorites, along with the 1921 film of the same name, which starred Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Valentino (who was the sex symbol of his day and had the ability to make women swoon over him) as the eponymous Sheik, too.

Something I noticed is that in the movie, Lady Diana Mayo only begins to love the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan after he treats her with respect (as he stops himself from attempting to rape her when he realizes he can’t go through with it, and instead chooses to send a serving girl — named Zilah in the book and film — to comfort her). When Zilah interrupts Diana’s praying and notices the worry and fear on Diana’s face, she offers her a hug, which Diana accepts and pours out her tears in Zilah’s arms while Zilah does her best to comfort the weeping Diana.

This is different from the book, where Diana not only begins to slowly fall in love with Ahmed after he subjects her to a period of rape and torture over a month — she also begins to change in her character. In other words, she’s shown to become quite different from the kind of person that she’d been before Ahmed abducted her while also learning what it feels like to live, to be alive in the desert and also wake to happiness and sadness — whereas before, she had been just existing in the adventures she had while traveling with her older brother Sir Aubrey Mayo, who had brought her up as a boy after the death of their parents (and which explains why she had previously been cold and unfeeling), and unconscious of something that was lacking in her nature.

 _The old life was far away in another world. She could never go back to it. She did not care. It was nothing to her. It was only here in the desert, in Ahmed Ben Hassan’s arms, that she had become alive, that she had learned what life really meant, that she had waked to both happiness and sorrow._  
~From **The Sheik** , p. 271

**Author's Note:**

> Nice feedback is very much appreciated, of course.. :)


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